What's the harm with religion?

I think it's a damn shame that so much time and money was wasted on this rapture nonsense. While this was a small sect, the percentage of Americans who believe that Jesus will come back in some form of apocalypse is astoundingly high. The truth of the matter is that even while that number is only around 45% (still too high for comfort), the number of Americans who believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead is still about 75%, and even more believe that some religious figure performed some sort of miracle, in addition to some god existing, a claim that has never been substantiated.

There are many people who think that it's wrong for me to challenge people's religious beliefs, because they don't see what the harm is. Allow me to provide you with an example:



While this is an example from the rapture, it's still a valid example, because this is not simply a matter of people being swayed by the most recent rapture claims, this is a matter of people accepting claims (particularly extraordinary ones) without demanding evidence. Essentially, this means if you're basing any of your beliefs on faith, you're setting yourself up to be scammed. Once someone has gotten you to accept an initial claim without evidence, you are then vulnerable to future claims that fall under the umbrella of the initial claim (cough cough the rapture cough). It doesn't follow by necessity that if a god exists that it cares about the earth, wants you to stone gay people, or made the earth 6,000-10,000 years ago, but once someone gets you accept that first claim without evidence, then in many cases it's downhill from there.

This is the reason why I think it's important to be a vocal proponent of critical thinking, particularly in areas where faith is required because the fact of the matter is I care. I care about the well-being and rights of myself and others. It saddens me when I see stories like the one above, a story that could have been avoided if only she had asked for evidence. If we care about our future, I think it's absolutely necessary to promote doubt towards religion. Religion is the primary reason why people deny evolution, global climate change, and try to deprive people of rights. It is the impediment to progress and is a proponent of ignorance, and the more ignorant we are, the easier it is to make decisions with negative consequences. If you identify with what I'm saying I encourage you to vocalize your objections when people say something that is verifiably false, when possible, because to do otherwise is allow people to bathe in misinformation.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

                                                                                                                          -Voltaire

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Another Logical Extension

I didn't want to create a TL;DR situation with my last post, so this is part two of What is our Obligation?.

I think for the people who accept the drowning child scenario I outlined last time, it should be relatively easy to understand a convincing argument based in the Problem of Evil (How could a god that is supposed to omnibenevolent, or at the very least good, be said to exist, alongside the existence of gratuitous evil/suffering?) for how a god/gods likely do not exist. This is different than simply saying, "I don't think there isn't any good evidence to say that a god exists," and is more like saying, "I think the evidence suggests that, in fact, no gods exist."

My argument basically goes like this:

P₁: The Drowning Child Scenario gives us an accurate understanding of our moral obligation relative to suffering/dying human beings in the case where we can easily do something about it.

P₂: If we behave in accordance with what follows from this scenario, we can be said to be behaving morally good.

P₃: Virtually all definitions of Gods include the characteristics of omniscience (all-knowingness), omnibenevolence (all-goodness), and while maybe not omnipotent, at least extremely powerful.

P₄: A God that has these characteristics is, in essence, always walking past a pond with a drowning child, and has no excuse, due to its omniscience and extreme power, not to prevent the horrible gratuitous suffering that is persistent in the world, without sacrificing its omnibenevolent status.

.˙.   At the very least, any person who wants to say a good God exists, is necessarily wrong, unless their God is ignorant of the happenings of the world, or just isn’t strong enough to prevent them. But if that is the case, what is the purpose of calling it a God?

I hope that was clear and concise. Feel free to ask questions or comment about it. I think I'm going to bed now. Good night.

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What is our Obligation?

Imagine one day as you're walking to work, you pass a pond, in which you see a drowning child. You immediately think you should jump in to save her, but then it occurs to you that you're wearing a new pair of shoes that were very expensive. It doesn't take more than a fraction of a second for you to realize that saving the child is unquestionably worth the fact that your shoes will be ruined; not only would it be worth it, but it would be immoral for you not to jump in and save her, since it's a small sacrifice to save the child.

Most people would probably be on board with the statement "If you were in that situation, you would be morally obligated to jump in and save the child." However, if one were to say to them that there is the equivalent of a drowning child whom you could easily help to save, they just happened to be on the other side of the globe, people are much more reluctant to say "of course you would be morally obligated to help". But what is the difference? I think this is something important to consider.

You may correctly guess, that I find this argument compelling, and this has drawn me to donate about 1% of my monthly income to organizations that help try to end absolute poverty. This is money that I certainly will not miss (it's probably the amount I spend on candy or other gratuitous snacks every month, perhaps even less), so I'm not actually sacrificing anything that's even close to a comparable moral significance, to people starving. I urge you to go to www.thelifeyoucansave.com/ to find out more information about what you can do to help

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Pray for Japan

I know most of you have heard a lot about the tragedies in Japan (for good reason), but I'm here to encourage you to actually do something (that you are capable of doing) about it. Part of the reason I'm trying to promote people to be proactive is partly due to the fact that I've seen as a trend on Twitter, and other places on the internet "Pray for Japan". While I'm sure the people that are saying we should pray for Japan are well-intentioned, and probably did something that actually helped along with praying, it's true that praying does nothing but make the person praying feel better. However, it does nothing to actually help the Japanese people affected by the utter devastation of their country. This is why I'm advocating donating to the Red Cross, UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, or any other reputable group that is helping the victims (human and animal alike) of this tragedy make it through and recover (especially these groups because they are not religiously based so they will not try to convert the people they are trying to help, they simply want to help them). I donated $50 to the Red Cross as a college student, so please, if you can, at least donate the minimum possible amount, which is $10 on most sites. These people are suffering, and you are not, simply because of a misfortune of geography. I thank you and I'm sure the people of Japan do too.



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CRYSTALCASTLES

Fucking awesome trip. Fucking awesome concert. You probably won't be able to tell which arm is mine, but I can tell and that's what matters. At about 0:14 I touch Alice Glass's hand which is awesome as hell, and prior to when this video started rolling, I was fortunate enough to be able to touch her butt haha. I don't remember the person next to me taking video, but obviously that wasn't my primary focus (though it's way awesome that they were). Anyway, enjoy the next 20 seconds and maybe you'll get a glimpse of what I experienced.



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My Future in Filmmaking

I pretty much knew this was possible already, but watching this video was kind of inspiring; it made me feel good about my own future as an independent filmmaker. I don't plan on doing much that is really graphics heavy, but I want to make the best stuff I can without getting bogged down with a lot of people, and this showed me just how feasible it is/was.



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Touchy Feely Christianity

In one of my classes last week we had to work in groups, and somehow during the course of the group work, the topic of 17th century witch burnings came up. The girl who was in our group said how she thought seemed antithetical and hypocritical for Christians to burn people who they thought were witches, and it seemed apparent from the way she said it that she is a Christian herself. I couldn't help myself but interject, and explained how they weren't really being hypocrites in doing that, they were taking a passage from Exodus that says if you find a witch you are not supposed let them live. I could tell this made her slightly uncomfortable, and even though I pointed out that the witch hunters had biblical justification for what they did, she still thought it seemed hypocritical.

This brief exchange highlighted a couple of things to me. One- unsurprisingly, Christians don't know their own Bible. I've known this for a while, but this is more evidence to that fact. Two- Christians, even though they claim to get their morality from the Bible, they actually judge things to be right and wrong for themselves. I think 99% of people actually do this, but then claim they get it from their religion of choice, which I would imagine in this case, she would think it was hypocritical because Jesus said to love your neighbor, which isn't the whole story if you claim to believe the Bible. I think the what we should take away from this, is why don't we take the nice things about life/philosophy, it doesn't matter where they come from, and then get rid of the atrocious things along with the supernatural things that we have no proper justification to believe, and just get along with each other. Maybe it's just me but that seems like a better option.

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